French startup SunPartner Group wants to charge your phone with the sun

This article was taken from the October 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.

French startup SunPartner Group thinks that plug-in electrical charging is obsolete -- so they've created a photovoltaic screen that solar-charges your phone on the go. "It's 90 per cent transparent, so we can add it to pretty much any surface," says CEO Ludovic Deblois. The component, called Wysips Crystal, measures 50cm2, costs €1 (60p) to make and can be integrated into smartphone screens during the manufacturing process. "Your phone isn't always exposed to sunlight, but Wysips still gives you 20 per cent more autonomy than a regular phone," says Deblois, 35.

The material is made of amorphous silicon and a copper-based semiconductor called CIGS. SunPartner has also released Wysips Cameleon, which modifies the technology into a 2m x 2m screen to be installed on billboards. The French billboard-maker Prismaflex is working to build it into its newest products, where it can generate 100 per cent of the power a billboard needs for light and image displays.

This article was first published in the October 2013 issue of WIRED magazine